16 Nov 2015

Awesome FEMME II 2015

Around last January, we were invited to FEMME II festival 2015 in Eindhoven. This was very nice news, as we were a bit let down at that moment, as just 1-2 months before we were forced to cancel our attendance to a big European tour with a very well-known metal band. This cancellation was due to lour own logistic reasons and impossible time schedule.

On the early hours of 16th October, we flew to Amsterdam. Finnair allowed me to bring my extra guitar inside the cabin, which was pleasant. Sometimes, this is not possible and in those cases it usually means extra payment for extra luggage. From Amsterdam we took a morning train to Eindhoven through beautiful Dutch pastoral landscape.

Pic 1: Where's the train? Please, look after your luggage...

Because of the time difference, we arrived to the city main station very early and started looking for our accommodation.Soon, we had found our bed and breakfast place, De Xtra Mijl (is this a typical dutch name?), at the suburban Eindhoven, around 2 kilometres from the center of the city. What a treat, a couple of rooms were reserved for us at the home of a very nice and happy elder couple. We were treated like royal people with amazing breakfasts and there was also a very beautiful Rembrandt-ish park nearby.

Pic 2: Autumn colours in Eindhoven.

What was pretty odd in Eindhoven, was that a taxi was here much cheaper than a ticket in a public transportation vehicle. Of course, travelling with all the music gear was also very much more convenient with taxi. To our amusement, at least two taxi drivers recognized our band and we actually got one free ride by giving the driver our cd!

Because our slot was put on Saturday, we could relax the Friday and enjoy the atmosphere of Effenaar, the huge concert venue. There were many interesting quality bands to check. Lacuna Coil was very impressive, for me, this was the first time to see them playing live.

We had to get up pretty early on Saturday morning. There was a morning(!) soundcheck ahead, as we were the opening band on the Saturday bill. From the technical point of view, things could not have been better. The backline was great, the hall and the stage were really great and the in-house technicians were top professionals, special thanks to Miriam Gramsbergen, who was leading the production.

The time ran very quickly during the day and soon we realised that it's only 20 minutes to our slot. And it was only 1 p.m.! We were lucky to share our dressing room with Karmaflow and Therion, so we could have very relaxed time with the guys before our show.

Pic 2: Besides the bass in Therion, Nalle was also a professional in Finnish swear words.

Soon we took the elevator down to the stage level and started killing the final minutes. Intro tape (Awen) started and we walked to the stage - the hall was filled already now, there were people even in the balconies, unbeliavable. Well, we could only give our best shot. We played the following songs:

The sound at the stage was perfect and the audience was just great. We enjoyed every second of the gig, the only bad thing was that the 40 minutes at stage was over too soon!

After our show, we had to ran to the merchandise area, as were kindly provided with a sales table at the main hall. It was great to meet many of the people at our show, we also sold a high number of cd's and t-shirts. The rest of the evening was superb, we could check Stream of Passion (with whom we played in the Netherlands 1 year ago), Therion, Tristania, the Gentle Storm and many other great bands. And of course we want to thank here Ton Dekkers, the festival
organiser, he is the brilliant mastermind behind the whole festival. Buy him a drink, wherever you see him.